“You must be Greed’s right hand woman, right?” The man smirked while Jessica tried to step back, however, she quickly felt his hand around her throat as he picked her off the floor as if she weight nothing to him.
“I’ll keep you around. I wonder how Greed will react when she sees the aftermath of my torture. That will teach her for messing with me.” His grin turned into a malicious teeth-grit face that was filled with so much fury that it essentially radiated off him.
Without giving it another thought, he quickly threw Jessica to the side, slamming her into a tree before throwing a kunai toward her.
The kunai suddenly let out a popping sound before two ropes came out of it and wrapped Jessica around the tree trunk, forcing her to watch the battle unfold as the man simply waited off to the side, watching Silas’ every move.
Jessica tried to break free, yet due to the crystal’s effects ending, she was currently suffering the backlash of using such an item without taking enough precautions.
“I am Arlos, the leader of this Assassin’s guild. And you, little boy, are nothing more than a nuisance.” The man grinned as he introduced himself to Silas.
The rest of the fight went the same way Silas remembered it… Or at least, the same way he remembered most of it.
And in the end, Silas was held up into the air and stabbed through the abdomen, causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood before being dropped to the ground.
Arlos’ expression returned to that of a grin as he laughed and laughed, yet in the end, his laughter was for naught.
After all, what happened next was burned into Jessica’s retinas.
She couldn’t forget it even if she tried.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that terrifying scene.
The scene of Silas’ fingers extending into claws. The scene where she had to watch as darkness took over his body, covering him in wriggling slime-like shadows before he finally stood up.
His face was completely plain. There was nothing on it.
It was completely smooth, or at least it looked that way.
The sound of cracks echoed through the forest as two wings protruded out of his back before expanding and showing their true size.
They looked like they were made out of shadows, but Jessica couldn’t shake the feeling that they closely resembled the wings of a bat despite being torn in several areas.
That’s when Silas… or whatever had taken over him began speaking.
It didn’t make sense to any of them. It was gibberish, yet the words felt like they had meaning behind them.
Not only that, but despite not understanding a single word coming out of its mouth, every living being in that area understand what the creature was saying.
*”You… Do… This?”* It asked.
“What the hell are you!” Arlos roared out in fear while punching toward the creature.
And somehow, the punch landed, slamming right into the creature’s face and blowing the top portion clean off.
Its body was instantly shot back as well, sent several hundred meters away in just a few seconds, while an enormous shockwave destroyed everything in Arlos’ path.
“Oh… That was easier than I thought… I wonder if I can keep you as my pet.” He thought before looking at Jessica and grinning.
“Keep both of you.” she smiled mischievously.
However, just like the rest of Silas’ and Jessica’s teammates, fate was simply not on his side…
Or to be specific, the monster before them was not going to fall that easily.
The misty forest below quivered with unease as every beast within it erupted in panic, even the dormant creature nestled in its heart. Abruptly, an immense, misty figure materialized, rising to a towering height of 20-25 meters, dwarfing even the loftiest trees that surrounded it.
Arlos furrowed his brow, while Jessica’s gaze fixated on the creature sprawled on the ground. Enveloped in sinister shadows, its massive wings lay folded by its side.
For an instant, Jessica pondered whether this could be Silas’ original form, but her thoughts were swiftly overwhelmed by an intense surge of fear—the most profound terror she had ever experienced.
A chill seeped through her veins as pure dread consumed her senses.
Her vision momentarily blurred, but she could not miss the macabre spectacle unfolding before her eyes.
The creature stirred, its body rising with an otherworldly grace that defied the use of limbs. It levitated, unaided by any visible force, while the flickering shadows upon its form grew more pronounced.
Simultaneously, the creature’s wings began to contort and expand, defying natural boundaries.
“YoU… tRy… KiLl… ME!?” A resonant, transcendental voice resonated through the forest, permeating the skies.
Its low timbre triggered tremors that shook the misty woodland, akin to an earthquake unfurling its might.
“YOU… TRY… KILL… ME!?” the creature bellowed once more, its body hovering above the ground as tendrils of darkness crawled outwards from where it last stood.
“No… This can’t be happening right now.” Jessica managed to utter, her words drowned out by the escalating vibrations that emanated from the creature’s core.
The quaking intensified, unleashing torrents of energy in relentless waves. Mana swirled, tainted, and blackened upon approaching the creature—a manifestation of pure, unadulterated power, bound only by the monster’s insidious will.
Cracks resounded throughout the forest, echoing like the tortured cries of a fiend crafted in the depths of hell itself.
Its jaw shattered and reformed, stretching until it tore through the enshrouding shadows. Unfathomably wide, the creature’s maw defied all human proportions.
The writhing shadows that clung to its body wriggled and stirred, plunging the surrounding realm into silence, pregnant with dread.
“I… KILL… YOU!” The creature fixated its gaze skyward, unleashing a mind-shattering screech that reverberated through the forest, inflicting sheer torment upon all who heard it.
In a sudden surge of motion, its body extended, and in that harrowing instant, countless tendrils and appendages—dark as night—propagated from its being, ruthlessly ripping through everything in their path, turning them into dust and destroying them at the speed of lightning.
Lightning thundered once more, shooting down from the skies and burning everything in their paths.
Like piercing drills, tendrils that seemed to have been created from the very fabric of the abyss pierced through Arlos’ body, before another set of tendrils penetrated Jessica’s arm and violently flung her away, rendering her unconscious.
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